Richard E. Peltier, UMass Amherst The Trump administration is “reconsidering” more than 30 air pollution regulations, and it offered industries a brief window to apply for exemptions that would allow them to stop following many air quality regulations immediately if approved. All of the exemptions involve rules finalized in 2024 and include regulations for hazardous air pollutants that cause asthma, heart disease and cancer. The results – if regulations are ultimately rolled back and if those rollbacks and any exemptions stand up to court challenges – could impact air quality across the United States. “Reconsideration” is a term used to review or modify a government regulation. While Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin provided few details, the breadth of the regulations being reconsidered affects all Americans. They include rules that set limits for pollutants that can harm human health, such as ozone, particulate matter and volatile organic carbon. Zeldin wrote on March 12, 2025, that his deregulation moves would “roll back trillions in regulatory costs and hidden “taxes” on U.S. families.“ What Zeldin didn’t say is that the economic and health benefits from decades of federal clean air regulations have far outweighed their costs. Some estimates suggest every $1 spent meeting clean air rules has returned $10 in health and economic benefits.

How far America has come, because of regulations

In the early 1970s, thick smog blanketed American cities and acid rain stripped forests bare from the Northeast to the Midwest. Air pollution wasn’t just a nuisance – it was a public health emergency. But in the decades since, the United States has engineered one of the most successful environmental turnarounds in history. Thanks to stronger air quality regulations, pollution levels have plummeted, preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths annually. And despite early predictions that these regulations would cripple the economy, the opposite has proven true: The U.S. economy more than doubled in size while pollution fell, showing that clean air and economic growth can – and do – go hand in hand. The numbers are eye-popping. An Environmental Protection Agency analysis of the first 20 years of the Clean Air Act, from 1970 to 1990, found the economic benefits of the regulations were about 42 times greater than the costs. The EPA later estimated that the cost of air quality regulations in the U.S. would be about US$65 billion in 2020, and the benefits, primarily in improved health and increased worker productivity, would be around $2 trillion. Other studies have found similar benefits. That’s a return of more than 30 to 1, making clean air one of the best investments the country has ever made.

Science-based regulations even the playing field

The turning point came with the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970, which put in place strict rules on pollutants from industry, vehicles and power plants. These rules targeted key culprits: lead, ozone, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter – substances that contribute to asthma, heart disease and premature deaths. An example was the removal of lead, which can harm the brain and other organs, from gasoline. That single change resulted in far lower levels of lead in people’s blood, including a 70% drop in U.S. children’s blood-lead levels.

The results have been extraordinary. Since 1980, emissions of six major air pollutants have dropped by 78%, even as the U.S. economy has more than doubled in size. Cities that were once notorious for their thick, choking smog – such as Los Angeles, Houston and Pittsburgh – now see far cleaner air, while lakes and forests devastated by acid rain in the Northeast have rebounded.

And most importantly, lives have been saved. The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to periodically estimate the costs and benefits of air quality regulations. In the most recent estimate, released in 2011, the EPA projected that air quality improvements would prevent over 230,000 premature deaths in 2020. That means fewer heart attacks, fewer emergency room visits for asthma, and more years of healthy life for millions of Americans.

The economic payoff

Critics of air quality regulations have long argued that the regulations are too expensive for businesses and consumers. But the data tells a very different story. EPA studies have confirmed that clean air regulations improve air quality over time. Other studies have shown that the health benefits greatly outweigh the costs. That pays off for the economy. Fewer illnesses mean lower health care costs, and healthier workers mean higher productivity and fewer missed workdays. The EPA estimated that for every $1 spent on meeting air quality regulations, the United States received $9 in benefits. A separate study by the non-partisan National Bureau of Economic Research in 2024 estimated that each $1 spent on air pollution regulation brought the U.S. economy at least $10 in benefits. And when considering the long-term impact on human health and climate stability, the return is even greater.

The next chapter in clean air

The air Americans breathe today is cleaner, much healthier and safer than it was just a few decades ago. Yet, despite this remarkable progress, air pollution remains a challenge in some parts of the country. Some urban neighborhoods remain stubbornly polluted because of vehicle emissions and industrial pollution. While urban pollution has declined, wildfire smoke has become a larger influence on poor air quality across the nation. That means the EPA still has work to do. If the agency works with environmental scientists, public health experts and industry, and fosters honest scientific consensus, it can continue to protect public health while supporting economic growth. At the same time, it can ensure that future generations enjoy the same clean air and prosperity that regulations have made possible. By instead considering retracting clean air rules, the EPA is calling into question the expertise of countless scientists who have provided their objective advice over decades to set standards designed to protect human lives. In many cases, industries won’t want to go back to past polluting ways, but lifting clean air rules means future investment might not be as protective. And it increases future regulatory uncertainty for industries. The past offers a clear lesson: Investing in clean air is not just good for public health – it’s good for the economy. With a track record of saving lives and delivering trillion-dollar benefits, air quality regulations remain one of the greatest policy success stories in American history. This article, originally published March 12, 2025, has been updated with the administration’s offer of exemptions for industries. Richard E. Peltier, Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, UMass Amherst This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Todd L. Ely, University of Colorado Denver With the Trump administration seeking to cut federal funding for colleges and universities, you might be wondering whether the endowments of these institutions of higher education might be able to fill those gaps. Todd L. Ely, a professor of public administration at the University of Colorado Denver, explains what endowments are and the constraints placed on them.

What’s an endowment?

Endowments are pools of financial investments that belong to a nonprofit. These assets produce a revenue stream, typically from dividends, interest and realized capital gains. The funds endowments hold usually originate as charitable donations made to support an institution’s mission. In most cases with higher education endowments, this wealth, which helps buoy a nonprofit’s budget, is supposed to last forever. Contributions to endowments are tax-deductible for donors who itemize their tax returns. Once these funds are invested, they grow generally tax-free. But beginning in 2018, the federal government imposed a 1.4% excise tax on dozens of higher education institutions with relatively large endowments. Few colleges or universities have a single endowment fund. That’s because the donors who provide gifts large and small to the school over the years direct their donations to different funds reserved for specific purposes. Harvard University’s endowment, worth $53.2 billion at the end of its 2024 fiscal year, for example, consists of roughly 14,600 distinct funds. All told, money distributed from endowments covered more than 15%, on average, of college and university operating expenses in 2024. Some of America’s institutions of higher education, however, lean much more heavily than that on their endowments to pay their bills.

How do endowments influence higher education?

Endowments can serve multiple purposes. In 2024, nearly half of all higher education spending paid for with endowment revenue funded scholarships and other kinds of aid for students, while almost 18% supported academic programs. Just under 11% paid for professors’ compensation, and almost 7% helped pay for running and maintaining campus facilities. More broadly, endowments can help shield schools from financial hardships and maintain their long-term reputations. When they’re set up to carry on in perpetuity, endowments must benefit both current and future generations. So when donors give to an endowment, they are arguably investing in the long-term viability of the institution. This long-term focus suggests that endowments aren’t just rainy-day funds or financial reserves.

Why can’t endowment funds be spent freely?

At the end of the 2023 fiscal year, U.S. higher education endowments held a total of more than $907 billion. That is a lot of money, but it’s still less than the combined wealth of America’s five richest people. Like individual wealth, endowment assets are heavily concentrated in the U.S. Many colleges and universities have small or no endowments. Nearly 60% of them total less than $50 million. The top 25, which includes several public universities in states such as Michigan and Texas, account for more than half of all endowment assets. And even when schools have large endowments, the individual funds that compose them are bound by a wide array of restrictions. Some of that money can be spent however the school would like. Other funds are dedicated to a clearly defined purpose. When endowment funds are restricted, the school gets little discretion in how to spend them. At Harvard, for example, there’s a Hollis Professorship of Divinity at Harvard University. It was established in 1721 through a gift from a London merchant. Based on the terms of that long-ago donation, the earnings and growth of the donated funds continue to honor the donor’s intent by supporting the position, regardless of what the university needs. Alternatively, endowments may receive donations that are temporarily restricted. Known as “term” endowments, the assets they hold can be used once donor-imposed conditions are fulfilled. Institutions frequently designate some of their unrestricted funds as “quasi” endowments, usually earmarked for specific strategic purposes. This board-designated quasi-endowment does not carry legal restrictions and can be spent more freely. About 40% of higher education endowment assets are subject to permanent restrictions, 30% are temporarily restricted, and 29% are reserved for quasi-endowment use.

How are decisions over endowment funds made?

The decision-making authority over endowments typically rests with a college or university’s governing board. Those boards establish endowment payout policies that guide how much of the endowment and its earnings can be spent each year, while attempting to preserve the purchasing power of the investments over the long term. The policies take expectations regarding investment earnings and inflation into account, while smoothing annual payouts by using a percentage of the value of the endowment over multiple years as opposed to a single point in time. This payout tends to amount to about 5% of all assets. That share averaged 4.8% in 2024. U.S. institutions of higher education spent nearly $35.5 billion derived from their endowments in the 2023 fiscal year. Colleges and universities that depend more heavily on their endowment funds to cover their current obligations may choose to invest more conservatively. In recent years, many higher education endowments have obtained more complex investments, such as private equity, real assets and stakes in hedge funds. Endowments of nonprofit colleges and universities are also governed in most states by a state law known as the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act. This law encourages cautious investments and restrained spending. These restrictions mean that annual payouts are generally modest. That leaves endowments ill-equipped to respond to abrupt and large shifts in their funding needs. The John F. Kennedy School of Government, commonly referred to as Harvard Kennedy School, is a member of The Conversation U.S. Todd L. Ely, Associate Professor of Public Administration; Director, Center for Local Government, University of Colorado Denver This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The sudden death of the Cameroon-born curator Koyo Kouoh, at the age of 57 and at the height of her career, has shaken the art world. Her passing has left a void in the African arts scene, one which extends far beyond the continent. Born in 1967 in Douala, she spent her teenage and early adult years in Zurich, Switzerland before returning to the continent and settling in Senegal. She lived in Cape Town, South Africa from 2019. There she was executive director and chief curator of the Zeitz MOCAA museum. It holds the continent’s largest collection of contemporary art. At the time of her death, she was due to become the first African woman to lead the prestigious Venice Biennale, dubbed the “Olympics of art world”. She described her practice, as a creative manager of art spaces and exhibitions, as being deeply rooted in:

A pan-African, feminist, ancestral, activist perspective, but also one that is generous, inclusive and welcoming.

Kouoh was unapologetic about her commitment to promoting Africa and Africanness on the global stage. Her decorated career included serving in global roles as curatorial advisor for leading exhibitions and art events. As a researcher of modern and contemporary arts of Africa, I first met Kouoh in 2015 when she facilitated a curatorial workshop I attended. I would work with her at Zeitz MOCAA, specifically helping research her landmark show, When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting. Beyond these achievements, Kouoh mentored countless artists and art organisers, especially women. She leaves a legacy of building sustainable art institutions, critical curating with care, uplifting artists and cultural workers, and educating through art.

Institution building

In her own words:

My motto has always been, You have to set up your own house and build your own home as opposed to trying to get into someone else’s castle.

One of the lasting legacies Kouoh left is teaching how to build African arts institutions, which help give creatives the chance to be seen and heard, and to make independent decisions free of the demands of funders. The RAW Material Company that she established in Dakar stands as testimony of that. Through the artist residency and exhibition space, she was able to bring many independent and emerging artists, curators and gallerists to Senegal. There she published books on art from the continent, helping nurture and shift the Africa art ecosystem as it began to play an increasingly visible role in global art markets.

Her role in reviving the unstable ship that was the Zeitz MOCAA at the time she took over and steering it to becoming one of Africa’s leading cultural institutions and a global competitor says a lot about her vision. As she said:

I’m a fixer, I like to take complicated institutions and make them sustainable.

Education

The exhibitions she led were thoroughly researched and tended to generate critical discourse and public dialogue. When We See Us, for example, comes with an education programme that includes a webinar series. Each exhibition of the show as it tours globally comes with a symposium and a publication with contributions from critical thinkers in the art industry. Even more impressive is how she managed to bring together people from different sectors, including respected academics, cultural workers and captains of industry. We cannot talk about Kouoh’s contributions to art education without mentioning the Zeitz MOCAA & University of the Western Cape Museum Fellowship Programme, geared to grow “curatorial practice as well as advance scholarship on contemporary art discourse from the continent”. In my tenure, I observed that the museum’s Centre for Art Education and its outreach programme were closest to her heart.

Celebrating African artists

At Zeitz MOCAA, Kouoh was more drawn to research-based solo exhibitions or select surveys which offered in-depth insights into “individual practices, with retrospectives and monographs”. In her time at the museum it shone a spotlight on African artists like Senzeni Marasela, Johannes Phokela, Tracey Rose, Mary Evans, Otobong Nkanga and others.

Through the museum’s ongoing Atelier programme, a studio residency which is open and experimental in nature, audiences gain insights into an artist’s practice, process, thinking and intentions. So far, artists like Thania Petersen, Igshaan Adams, Unathi Mkonto and Berni Searle have shared these processes, which normally remain invisible to those who only see the final work. She did all this in just over five years in Cape Town.

Uplifting generations

Kouoh believed in people’s potential and saw infinite possibilities in each one of us. This can be seen through the many peers and young talents she mentored and provided space to flourish. The young team of mostly Black female curators she has left in place at Zeitz MOCAA is proof of that. She cared about the welfare of the people around her.

Of the need to elevate women, she stated:

The importance, or rather the urgency, of focusing on women’s voices cannot be highlighted enough.

Curator of the Venice Biennale 2026

Recently appointed as the next Venice Biennale’s artistic director, Kouoh was due to present the exhibition’s title and theme in Venice on 20 May. Those who have known her practice, as well as her obsessions and values, keenly anticipated the day, knowing African voices would take centre stage. I hope her team will be allowed to execute her ideas to the end.

Legacy

Kouoh belonged to a pioneering generation of African curators who worked hard for the recognition of African voices and creativity on the global stage. Although that recognition started to be earned in the 1990s, she realised a lot more still needed to be done, which is why she never stopped working, even at the most difficult of times.

She shared her vision of building strong independent institutions, encouraging others to do the same. She led in documenting and critically engaging artistic processes, and in producing African knowledge. May her legacy and her spirit live on. As she said:

I do believe in life after death, because I come from an ancestral black education where we believe in parallel lives and realities.

Barnabas Ticha Muvhuti, Nancy and Robert J. Carney Postdoctoral Associate in Art History, Rice University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.